It's` This is it. Like, I'm just` It just looks like a biker jacket. That looks like something you'd wear on the moon; those aren't, like, skinny jeans; that neck is weird. She did an interview and she's like, 'I know it's gonna sound weird, but I'm kinda preferring small lips at the moment.' I'm sending this. Is this the future we dreamed of? Our teens glued to their phones, the real world unable to compete with the online. It seemed like it just happened ` we blinked and now technology has taken over our kids' lives. My phone is in my hand all the time. If I was with somebody else, we'd be having a conversation, but there would definitely be a lot of phone involvement. I guess our generation, we're pretty lazy, actually. We're pretty slack. We spend most of our life online. Parents are worried that our kids are addicted, that they can access loads of pornography, and that they're vulnerable to online predators. We just don't know what to do. 'Who are you talking to? What's going on?' Yeah, I hope they're not a 45-year-old man,...(CHUCKLES) basically. GUNFIRE ON VIDEO GAME Are they causing permanent damage to themselves? Is this new world the way it's always going to be? The online experience is... I'd say it's 10 times better than real life. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 REFLECTIVE ELECTRONIC MUSIC An hour north of Auckland live the Ross family ` Mum, Dad and the four kids. Technology ` the phones, computers and tablets ` have slipped into their lives and are part of everyday family life. They're choosing to do the technology over any` anything else. If I've got to a point where I've` at my wit's end because they're not helping out or doing what they're supposed to be doing, I'll go and turn the Wi-Fi off, and all of a sudden, it's like rats crawling out of the den or something. (LAUGHS) They all kind of appear. If you're dragging them away from something, then they're probably addicted to it, you know? Mase, hurry up. And then you've gotta put up with moods, cos they're all unhappy that you've gone and done that. So then you're dealing with a stroppy teenager, and you're the worst person in the world cos you've turned the internet off, and it's like... never would've thought 10 years ago that this would be such an issue. And their phones and devices go with them to school. Three of the kids go to Orewa College, which has a 'bring your own devices' policy and an open internet. You have an open internet, which seems incredibly brave when you've got a` (LAUGHS) A lot of teenagers? 2000 teenagers! > Teenagers, yeah. 'Help yourself.' We thought about it for a long time and thought, well, are we teaching our students anything if we put walls up and filters up and things like that? It's like putting crash mats under trees, you know? You're not gonna learn that if you fall out of the tree, you hurt yourself. The kids may have been on their devices all day at school, but when they get home, they spend more time gaming or online. MICHELLE: Get your bag. Where's Kennedy? Just complete shutdown, and one's on PlayStation, the others are on their iPads. The bad thing for me is that their socialising skills are not there. And the other day, Mase was supposed to go to a friend's, and then we spoke to the father and we said, 'What do they do there?' And he goes, 'I don't know, bud.' When they were there the other day, the three of them were sitting on the couch, just doing the same thing, just` < On their phones. Not even` Not even talking to each other, and they were in the same room. I thought, 'When did this all happen?' Are we in the middle of a moral panic about teenagers and technology? I think I would prefer the term social anxiety. And I think one of the advantages of that term, actually, is that, you know, anxiety implies that we don't quite know what it is that we fear. We're not quite sure what or who the enemy is here. Is it technology? Is it young people themselves? Is it bad parenting? We're venturing into, sort of, uncharted territory. It might be a museum piece now, but the release of the iPhone in 2007 was a game changer, the thing that saw technology take over our lives. It replaced our camera and our alarm clock, and now it's even replacing our television and our computer. Even when we don't have it with us, we feel it ringing in our pockets. Phantom vibration syndrome ` it's a real thing. Google it. For me, my phone is in my hand all the time. It pretty much has everything on it, you know? Like, it's everything that connects me to everybody else. I use it for communicating with mates; organising meeting places; where our class is at school, you know? So that sounds like a business person at the moment. Yep. And then there's the rest. (LAUGHS) What's the rest? Average day, I'd probably post on Instagram; at least 40 Snapchats a day, probably; Facebook ` liking things, tagging people and things; and then Messenger as well, that's, oh, at least 150 messages a day. Oh yeah, and texting ` 80 to 100, depending on the day. I'm checking my phone basically all day. Is that a normal level of use for people your age? (CHUCKLES) Yeah. Is it an anti-social thing, though, all these kids on their phones, not talking to each other? What's more social than communicating? I think what people are probably really objecting to is the sense that it's rude to, for example, be immersed in your digital device when you might otherwise be talking to someone face-to-face. What about the idea that kids are losing the ability to communicate cos it's all digital and screens? Well, first of all, it's a gross generalisation. We tend to tar a whole generation with one brush. We have to recognise that, actually, young people are using digital technologies very much to communicate. Oh really? (GIGGLES) Parents are trying all kinds of things to deal with this technology onslaught. Our Wi-Fi turns off 5 to 7 so that we can help with dinner and have some family time. What's that like? I'm not a fan. Definitely not a fan. I've told them that. I mean, alongside it, you know, interfering with my school life and education, which I've pitched to them` (LAUGHS) You say that with such a straight face. Do you think that you're addicted? I mean, addicted's a bit harsh. Can you imagine a world without your phone? Um, (CHUCKLES) it would definitely be a lot harder. I wanted Sarah to see what life without her phone would be like. We're gonna take your phone for 24 hours. (SIGHS) All right. You won't be able to like anything on here. You'd have to like stuff in the old-fashioned way, like, 'Oh, I quite like that.' (LAUGHS) Yeah, it's not gonna be easy. I feel real, like, left out of everything, eh. Like... (SIGHS) (EXHALES) Already tonight, I've been going to grab my phone. Multiple times, I've physically gone to get it out of my pocket and it's` it's not there, you know? It is literally a part of me. It's been horrible not having it. Just gotten ready for school. Um, didn't have my phone or anything to do it with. I mean, usually I'll text people, Snapchat people while I'm, you know, getting ready. It's lunchtime and we're just in our lunch room, and these two are just on their phones. All right, we got bored so we played Hangman. I would still rather have my phone. (LAUGHS) It's been hard not being able to communicate. Somebody could've died. Some important famous person could've died and I'd have no clue. So, Sarah, that's 24 hours. What was that like? Terrible. BOTH CHUCKLE Pretty terrible. Yeah, it wasn't easy. Would you like your phone back again? Definitely. Cos we don't have to. Like, we can` No, I really think we have to. Yep. So I should give you` now give you your phone back, which you can check, I guess. CELL PHONE CHIMES REPEATEDLY So what does it feel like (SIGHS) having your phone back? A lot better. Really? Yeah. (CHUCKLES) I feel a lot more connected to everything. You spent the entire time without knowing anything about what was going on in any of your accounts or anything. I mean, almost. Almost the entire time. So when you say 'almost'... (LAUGHS) (SIGHS) I'm gonna be honest. I might've technically cheated a little bit. I called my friend Annabelle on the landline. I got her to log on to my Instagram just because (SIGHS) I` I really missed it. I might have got her to log on to my Instagram for me... (LAUGHS) ...and just read out a few of the comments... CELL PHONE CHIMES There we go. ...and let me know. So you` So tw` CELL PHONE CHIMES REPEATEDLY Is that music to your ears now, or is that like`? Definitely. Definitely. (CHUCKLES) SIGHS: OK. So much relief. Did you get anxious without your phone? It was kind of anxious, yeah. Like, walking places, when I'm usually just on my phone, I had to walk and just... walk. Sarah's thoughts might be both funny and scary, but parents have genuine fears about the two P's ` paedophiles and pornography. When you think back to when you were a teenager, there were probably lots of things that you were doing that you hope your children aren't doing. Well, it turns out there's lots of good news. Since 1971, the rate of teenage pregnancies has halved. In 1981, the chances of a teenager being a smoker was 28%, and now it's only 10%. The rate of child and youth criminal offending has been trending steadily down for the last 20 years. They are drinking and driving less, and they're using less marijuana. So it looks like the kids are OK. (INHALES) Or is it just that they're too busy on Instagram to get into trouble? Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter is where teenagers can present their public face. But there's also what they do in private. Very little is known about what NZ teenagers get up to. We conducted a Colmar Brunton survey into the private internet life of teens around the country, and I've enlisted the help of Maree Crabbe, who's an expert on teens and technology. I think it's important to remember that sexual curiosity is normal and healthy. And in days gone by, people might've looked up 'breast' or 'penis' or something in the dictionary. Now people Google it, and if you Google those things, you're gonna get porn. The question is what they're coming across when they are curious. 30% of all internet use is pornography-related. But our survey shows how much pornography NZ teenagers are really looking at. So, like, 82% of our 16- to 18-year-olds have seen pornography. 31% of the boys are watching porn several times a week. So they may have seen dozens or even hundreds of hours of porn before they've been sexual with someone. It seems that the internet is educating our kids about sex. 29% of young people are getting information about sex and sexuality from Mum; 21% from Dad. Parents are pretty low on that, aren't they? 61% from the internet. From the internet, yes. 29% of them have said that they're getting that from porn. Young people are learning a whole range of messages, you know, around bodies, sexual health, pleasure, consent. The sort of porn that young people come across online that's really freely and easily available is often aggressive. The research indicates that those messages are shaping young people's understandings of` of sex, of what sex is like. Question ` pornography has shaped your sexual tastes or expectations. 37% of young people agreed with that. If you're a teenager and you're thinking, 'Right, what's sex all about?' If almost all of it is aggressive acts directed at women ` 'OK, so that's what sex is about' ` that's not a good thing, is it? No, that's` that's pretty terrible. That is pretty terrible. I think we can't afford to leave young people's sexuality education to the porn industry. And when you look at the question 'pornography shows realistic sex',... ...82% of girls and 70% of boys know that porn doesn't show realistic sex. Unfortunately, that analysis doesn't mean that they're not engaging in what porn shows. And that's where our survey uncovered something quite disturbing. I mean, when I look at the results for sexting for young people, those results, for me, are quite shocking. They are. READS: Sending sexual photos or videos is common amongst people your age. That's like` 80% of young women think that this is common. 45% of young men either agree slightly or strongly that that's common. I think pornography normalises sexual imagery. It suggests that sexual imagery, and particularly sexual imagery of women, is just normal. If you're in a relationship with someone, one in three young women think it's expected, it's part of the deal. And expected of them, so the pressure will be on young women to provide that image. Over half of the young women have received a sexual photo or video from someone. 40% of the boys have done. 50% of the girls have had someone request that they send a sexual photo or video of themself. And over a third of NZ girls have sent a sexual image of themselves. That's a pretty alarming statistic. All of which says don't let the internet educate young people about sexual relationships and how to treat people. Don't. The challenge is there for parents, for teachers, for adults in young people's lives to do this better than the internet can do. But a lot of parents' worst fear on the internet is sex offenders' access to our children. It's a very real risk. There are definitely people online who use the tools that are available to them to, uh, access young people. We like to think our kids are well prepared, we give them the stranger-danger speech, but, you know, truthfully when they meet someone online who knows a little bit about them and, you know, befriends them, they are likely to get into a relationship with them. Where kids get, uh, drawn into those relationships, you know, the harm is significant. Brett Lee is a former Australian police officer who's put close to a hundred paedophiles behind bars. Child sex offenders go through five steps on the internet to commit an offence against a young person. They locate a victim online; they identify a potential victim; they gather that victim's information; they then groom that victim; and then they commit offences against that young person. It's very hard to gauge the numbers of people online who are either looking for or prepared to harm children online. How concerned should parents be? They should be concerned that there's people in the same environment as their children that are prepared to harm their children, but that shouldn't cause fear. I wanted Brett Lee to look into the Ross family's online behaviour to see if they were acting safely. Everything's all... That's always, I think` A parent's biggest fear, is, you know, the whole grooming thing and all that. 'Who are you talking to? What's going on?' You hope they're not a 45-year-old man, (CHUCKLES)... basically. KEYBOARD CLACKS When our computer guy Brett Lee, when he kind of has a look at their online footprint, what do you think he'll find? I think, like, pictures, because they upload pictures galore. Selfie, selfie, selfie, more selfies. After digitally stalking them, Brett Lee is ready to meet the Ross family. So, everyone, this is Brett. BRETT: Good afternoon. Don't tell me ` Kennedy, Mason, Riley and Reagan. LAUGHTER Wow. KEYBOARD CLACKS OK, guys, I was given the task of seeing how much information I could find out about you, your family, your friends, uh, and your life. I spent about, uh, half an hour just having a bit of a search, and I just did some searches that anybody in the world could do. KEYBOARD CLACKS I was able to find out what you may be surprised to know was a fair bit of information. I got everybody's names; I've got photographs of everybody; photos of the kids in the spa. I had your address; the ages of everybody; your phone number. I knew where and when you went on holiday. I felt like I already knew you guys. Who gave away the most information in the family? Do you want me to be honest? Yeah, go on. Mum gave away the most. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Oops. It was Michelle. > I'm a sharing kind of person. What have they done that has protected them from, kind of, the bad people out there? Probably the biggest thing I noticed with this family, the online activity seemed to be a family experience whereby Kennedy and Mason were on your friends list. The information that I saw was appropriate, the privacy settings were in place, and that's quite common for teenagers now. Five or six years ago, 95% of teenagers would've never even heard of privacy settings. But there's one last bit of bad news for the Ross family. Brett thinks they should take the phones and computers out of the bedrooms. When I was growing up, my world was very small. When I left school, I couldn't be bullied by those students. I went home to my room, to the sanctity of my room, the safest place I could ever be. Young people, when they go into their room now, it's a very private place; there's no one around that can help them. They're in what they believe probably is the most secure place they can be, but then others come into their room via technology to` maybe to expose them to, um, inappropriate behaviour. It's weird, cos it's a bit like if you were a parent and you knew your kids were in their room and all kinds of weird people could be looking in through the window and having conversations with them through the window, you would freak out and you would be in their room all the time. But they're literally doing that with devices. That's exactly right. It's just our mindset. I think there's a lot of finger-crossing going on out there where we're hoping our kids will get through OK. I've spoken to hundreds of child-sex offenders on the internet, and one of the first things that they would ask me, nearly every single one, would be 'where are you?' 'Are you in your bedroom?' 'Is the door closed?' Predators need privacy, and the ultimate to privacy is a bedroom. So keeping technology out of the bedroom, I believe, is one of the biggest things a parent should be trying to achieve when it comes to their children. We as parents are the only line of defence between our children and every single thing that that adult world has to offer ` and every single person. But when it comes to protecting our kids from other children, it turns out that a lot of us might not be doing the right thing. REFLECTIVE PIANO MUSIC Even in a picture-perfect town like Alexandra, the tentacles of the new online world can be felt. Maddie was pushed to breaking point by cyberbullying, a word that was added to the dictionary in 2011. What's life like here in Alexandra? It is quiet. We're a really tight-knit community, and you can't walk down the street without waving to someone or everyone. For me, it was really great to grow up; had lots of friends. I used to be a really social person, and I couldn't go a week without seeing them or doing something. We know what our kids are up to online some of the time. They might tell us about what they saw on YouTube, but we often don't know what's happening in private on their phone, in texts, on Messenger or Snapchat. We hear a lot about cyberbullying, but how much is it a problem? How many teenagers are dealing with cyberbullying? Well, by the time people are in secondary school, about one in five will report that they get some` have some negative experience from cyberbullying each year. For our generation, our phone and the internet is like another limb. My whole world is kind of just right here in my palm. That's why if you're getting bullied online and things like that, it's really devastating, because it's like you're losing this whole other part of yourself and you feel like you can't go on any more or that it's not safe. It'd be like your own hand kinda turning on ya. And in October 2014, Maddie got to experience that for herself. It stemmed from just a conflict between me and another person, and then from there, it branched out. I was surprised by how vicious it was and how much it actually did affect me. How is cyberbullying different from, kind of, real-world bullying? You don't have safe zones in the same way that you did in` in sort of physical bullying. So if you were bullied on the school bus, that school bus was the place where you felt fear, but the rest of the time, you felt OK. It tends to be with cyberbullying, it follows you around and it` and it, you know, will get to you more like 24 hours a day. And that is` That relentlessness of it can be, uh, quite harmful. What about your family? How much did they know about what was going on? I think they had a sense that there was something really wrong, but I'd always be adamant that I was fine because I didn't want it to be their problem. Parents would just say, 'just delete the account, just get rid of it.' Just because I delete my account doesn't mean things aren't being said. I just felt like, 'Why do I have to be punished?' And that's often the first response, isn't it? Like, if something happens, it's like 'shut down the computers, stop the internet'. I guess it's a traditional sort of parenting thing that if you` if you knew that something was putting your child at risk, you'd separate your child from it. But removing the access to technology from the child is actually quite harmful. It prevents the young people from coming forward and saying, you know, 'I've got a problem,' because they're worried that you're gonna take the technology off them and it's such a big part of their life. It started about the start of October, and by the end of October I was admitted into hospital, um, for my mental health. The thing about that, though, was even when I was still in hospital, (SHAKILY) they made it clear that they didn't care and that it was funny. And that they had won because I had got so... to such a low point. The first time I went there, I saw my mum cry. I mean, I've never seen my mum cry, and that was really upsetting cos I` well, I was surprised that she cared that much, because I was at that point where I didn't think anyone did. But one day, it all just seemed overwhelming. There was also some stuff with the bullies that day. I can't even remember now. That day was a horrible day. I smashed everything in my room. SHAKILY: The paramedics came and I was taken out to Clyde Hospital. Um... (SIGHS) Yeah, I feel` I still feel quite sick thinking about what I put my family through. Like (INHALES) I remember I heard my dad cry, and that was even worse than hearing your mum cry because, you know, it's your dad and your dad's, you know, tough as anything. When I was in the ward, that's when I knew that I needed to come clean about what had been happening. REFLECTIVE MUSIC I let the people know who were posting stuff that we had gone to the police and that they would be expecting a call, and then straight away, all the stuff, they'd just gone and deleted everything. Basically after that, it stopped, and I think it kind of shook them with how serious the police were taking it, because now they have that new law where if you bully someone online or just in general and they either try to commit suicide or they have, I think you can be prosecuted now. I look at it as a really harsh lesson, but also a really great lesson. I don't care what people think. Chances are you probably don't know me anyway, and that's fine, cos I know the people who do know me do like me. Maddie's involved with Sticks 'n Stones, a group of students trying to prevent the exact thing that happened to her. I got involved right from the get-go. We came up with the name and the logo and the slogans. The programme is designed by students for students, and it needs to be, because things really are different today. I grew up when there was not even an internet. We look at the online thing and think, 'Well, it's not really real, it's kind of made-up,' but you guys think of it quite differently, eh? Yeah, like, we definitely think it's very real. Everything that happens online is still real life. I think we've opened up, kind of, just, like, a support network,... < GIRL: Yeah. ...and people have someone now to come to when they've got a problem instead of going, 'Oh my God,' like, 'what do I do?' Tom is having a really crap day. He got into a fight with his best mate over some girl. Hmm. We helped make it to what it is today, so I do really care about it. And we're doing lots of awesome stuff, so for me, Sticks 'n Stones is kind of, like... When I was unwell, it was just the light at the end of the tunnel. If you're feeling bad, most people take it out on other people. < I reckon it could be all day. Yeah. See, I think that's fantastic. The psychologist in me says these guys, even though they're young people, they really know what they're doing and why they're doing it, um, and I just love that idea that young people are coming up with solutions to problems, and it's working, and it should be everywhere. And maybe if we leave the teenagers in control, they'll find solutions to all of these technology problems. GIRL (ON COMPUTER): I've got over 200 questions on Instagram. Beauty by Caz wants to know 'what's your favourite type of pizza?' My favourite type of pizza has always been thin-crust pepperoni pizza with BBQ swirl. So good. I really don't get this. This is Sally Jo, and she's got over 100,000 subscribers who watch her give advice about putting on make-up. Get your brush and put it right at the root, and then kind of... For teenagers, new careers and opportunities are opening up online. Sally Jo is in the top 20 of NZ YouTubers ` that's a person who has a YouTube channel that people subscribe to. Guessing that I'm not your target audience. So who is? Yeah, I don't really go for, like, a set demographic. You can watch, if you want, Nigel. BOTH CHUCKLE I have! I'm doing a swap! 'My top viewed is an international swap I did with a American YouTuber.' Aw, she's, like, written it all pretty. 'I sent her stuff from NZ and she sent me stuff from America.' Oh my gosh, I love it. I think the interaction is, like, the main thing that's so special about YouTube, because it's so instantaneous. Like, you can just put it up and people comment straight away, and for those people, it's like, you know, I'm their friend, even though I haven't technically met every single one of them. It's going to be this little... I'm beginning to understand that, unlike me, teenagers don't differentiate between the online world and the real world. Somehow the idea that if you only talk to someone online, then it's not a real friendship or it's not a real relationship is to completely misunderstand what it means for many young people. And in Hamilton, 17-year-old Jared is a YouTuber like Sally Jo, but he makes his money talking about a computer game. A lot of parents would think that what you're doing is just goofing around on YouTube, but it's an enormously complicated thing, isn't it? There's a huge process behind it, you know. There is brainstorming ideas; there's the video editing part; you know, actually being entertaining. There's so many things that you actually have to go through to get somewhere on YouTube. I'm having a blast with the game. It's a lot of fun. I'm actually... These are real jobs paying real money for talking about something you're passionate about. But is it a realistic career choice? This is a very personal question ` how much money are you making out of YouTube? Well, it fluctuates, like, a lot, because it's all really dependant on how many views, you know, you generate in that month. Now, keep in mind these figures are US dollars. So as we can see here, May 2015 is the most I've ever been paid in one single payment. So that is US$5800 right there. (CHUCKLES) Um, total views for that month was 4.3 million. That's a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, it's not` it's not bad. And the path to success is different in this new world. Your dad, he was a TV presenter. You didn't ever think about going down that particular route? No, I never ever wanted to get in to television or anything like that. Right, low cloud. Maybe a bit of fog and drizzle around. I got it so much as a kid, all the jokes, 'Are you going to be the next weather lady?' Blah blah blah. I feel like technology across any type of social media just means you don't have to be professionally trained in something. You can just kind of dabble in everything. Like, you can do presenting or you could do photography or design or something. And who knows? You might, like, end up having a career and it's just through technology. How long does a career as a YouTuber last? Who knows? That's the thing ` nobody knows. And people always say to me, 'What are you gonna do if YouTube ends?' And you just can't really think like that. You've just gonna keep doing what you're doing. Parents are worried about their kids sitting in front of screens and just watching stuff and playing games. But you started off doing that and then turned into someone who makes stuff. It's quite hard for parents to know when one thing is going to lead to another thing. I mean, it's just one of those things that you don't really know. I mean, there are people making livings off just sitting in front of a computer and playing games and just being themselves, and it makes you think, like, what else could evolve? 15-year-old Robert is planning on making a career out of gaming, now called e-sports. The NZ League Of Legends is broadcast live on pay TV, and in the US, winners take home $1 million. He goes in. They wanna find it. Can they get the steal? Can they get the secure?! But is there a cost to becoming an e-sport champion? What are your goals with gaming? I wanna get really professional. I wanna get into a really professional team and I wanna play on a world stage and I wanna be the best. DISTORTED VOICE ON VIDEO GAME How much time would you spend gaming? 12 hours a day. On a school day? Yeah, 12 hours. What about at the weekend? 16 hours. Wow. Does that mean that you don't sleep or eat? Uh, I sleep very little and I eat a lot. (LAUGHS) And how does his dad feel about that? The work that Robert puts into his gaming, while some people would look at it and say, 'Oh, he's just playing games,' I see it differently. I see that he's focused and he wants to become a professional gamer. I have nephews who are working on professional rugby careers. They would put six to eight hours of training work in per day. Addiction is an overused term these days, but for me, if your gaming means you're increasingly neglecting other parts of your life, that may not be an addiction, but it's certainly a problem. DOG BARKS Above a vet in suburban Christchurch, counsellor James Driver treats computer game addicts, and he knows what they're going through. James, can you tell me about your gaming addiction? I was living with another guy and we bought a` a game, EverQuest, together. At first, it was just sort of most evenings when I got home from uni. I don't know how quickly it increased, but over the course of probably a few months, up to the point where I was playing 12 to 16 hours a day, literally every waking moment. The first impacts were on uni ` that I wasn't studying in my spare time, then I wasn't going to classes. I stopped eating regularly, and my health deteriorated, my social life deteriorated. You know, by the end, kind of everything had` had turned to shit. CRASHING ON VIDEO GAME With the amount of hours that you play, do you feel like you're addicted? Sometimes I think that, but I know if I do wanna stop, I can just stop. I think loads of people would say '16 hours a day? Man, you're hopelessly addicted.' Mm. I just enjoy it a lot and it gives me a lot of pleasure. And I don't want to get rid of things that I enjoy. FANFARE, CLINKING ON VIDEO GAME What would be the signs that your kid has a problem in terms of their addictions to games? You know, thinking about the game all the time, even dreaming about it, are pretty good indicators that it's taken on, you know, some real significance. Starting to neglect other areas of their life ` not doing homework, not wanting to attend school, becoming less social, spending less time with friends, spending less time on other activities. The technology, at one level, is designed to be addictive, and so we shouldn't be surprised that it's addictive in the same way that shopping or watching television can be addictive, though there's certainly no credible research evidence to suggest that it's addictive in the way that crack cocaine might be, although, sometimes the way that you hear people talk about it in somewhat hysterical tones, it almost sounds as if they think it is. So, let me just ask you a shrink question, cos I've gotta ask it. I can't not ask it. If you think of a scale from zero 10, and 10 is, like, really really happy and zero is not happy at all, on average, what would your score be in your life? Eight. Eight. And if you've been gaming for 12 hours, what would it be? 10. (CHUCKLES) And if you've been at school for the day, what would it be? Five. I think the online world is a lot better than the real world. That does sound kind of bad, but it's` it's 100% true, because if people don't enjoy this world, where are they gonna go? And that's why there is an online world, so they can build the life that they want to have. Technology is blamed for, among other things, depression, insomnia, myopia, bad posture, short attention span and poor communication. That all sounds very grim, which is why a lot of research is being done in this area. But really, only one piece of research is definitive. The more screen time they have under 2, the more detrimental it is. The World Health Organisation has to have really solid research before they'll make recommendations. They don't make recommendations about how much screen time you should have as a teenager. But they do about under 2. Screens under 2 may delay language development and reading skills and may cause problems with sleeping and attention. But what about the rest ` the insomnia and short-sightedness, the depression and bad posture? A lot of smart people from all over the world have been looking at the possible harmful effects of technology. But so far, the evidence just isn't there. If we don't know, shouldn't we just minimise screen time to be safe? The` The genie's already out of the bottle. You know, it's utterly unrealistic. And I think, equally, it's really problematic if we want to deprive young people of the opportunity to use this technology for good things. And we can see examples of young people harnessing this technology for very creative and interesting kinds of uses. And I think the idea that we could somehow shut that off, um, in order to just play safe is silly but also futile. So maybe we should look at it differently and ask what new opportunities are being opened up by all this technology. Many people feel the current generation are addicted to technology. But what do these kids think themselves? Put your hand up if you would spend about an hour a day online ` that's excluding school. Put your hand up. Two to four hours a day online, outside of school. If you spend more than four hours a day. That's a third of these kids that spend more than four hours online a day. Now hands up if you think you spend too much time online. The result is worrying. Two out of three of these teenagers think they spend too much time on computers. For a lot of parents, the ideal for their children is playing outside and exploring nature, and the Crean family think they may have got the balance right ` two hours a day on screens. We're all going for a walk to an inner city waterfall. Max, when your mum and dad said that you guys were going screen-free, what did you think? I was panicking. I was like, 'Oh no, I don't know what I'm gonna do.' Now when they say, oh, 'You've got 10 minutes left,' um, I'm sort of` cos I've got other things I can do. So what` what do you do? I love reading. Uh` What, like an actual book? Many organisations around the world have a recommendation of two hours or less screen time a day for teenagers. That's an actual waterfall. WOMAN: (LAUGHS) Sure is. What have you specifically done at home? After school, they're allowed two hours. Um` Homework's in addition to that. And that's a combination of television and entertainment on their screens. They're looking something up, that's absolutely fine as well. That's great, cos they're gonna then switch it off and go in the real world and do it. We divide life into consumption and production, so we try to look at most things we do and say 'Is this something that's consuming or is this something that's producing?' What was at home that you thought, 'Ooh, hang on'? We were noticing, for instance, that the kids would be on a computer before school; TV would go straight on after school. It was the sheer number of hours. And a screen was beginning to have the priority in the household, and, um, it didn't seem right. MAN (ON VIDEO GAME): Get back to positions! What's been the impact on your family, from your point of view, of sticking to that two-hour thing? I think we're getting more things done. There's actually a life. You just look up, it's like, 'Whoa, what's that? It's something there.' Good stuff. With the time online, it just sucks up their attention, and then once that's removed from the equation, you'll be quite surprised what they get up to. Give your kids a chance to be bored. One of the things that you hear a lot is that people want their kids to be outside and climbing trees. And you just` You don't what your teenagers inside all the time; you want them outside doing stuff as well. If a child plays Minecraft, that doesn't mean he's never ever going to climb a tree. It is possible to do both, you know. And we see, actually, most children do both all of the time. But perhaps there's a way to turn screen time into a lucrative career. Put your hands up if you've ever built a website. Now put your hand up if you've ever written code. A quarter of these students have written code, and five out of the 50 students are planning on a future in computing. But it's not that easy to just have more computer classes. Finding teachers to teach coding at the moment's like finding hens' teeth. I mean, if you're any good at that sort of thing, you're working in a` in an IT industry earning six figures rather than, um, being a teacher at a secondary school. But an intermediate school in Christchurch may have the answer. They're trialling a system where teachers who aren't computer experts can teach coding without computers. Is there any number you think that you couldn't make using binaries? Or what would you need to make` represent bigger numbers? < Can we show 1? Tell me about the programme that you've developed. Like, how did you come up with these ideas? It started when my son was 5 years old and I was asked to go and talk to his class about what I do. I was looking for something really physical to do with that. And one of the things about computer science, rather than just talk about it, it's really good to do it. If you talk about it, it sounds weird and I could never understand that. People do it and they go, 'Oh! That makes sense.' Nigel, could I get you to come up? If you stand over there. So he's in London, and I'm here in Christchurch, and I want to get this important piece of information ` it's actually a piece of chocolate ` to him. But of course, we need the internet in between, so... We turned it into, you know, magic tricks and puzzles and games and things like that. And the engagement with the kids was astonishing. There was no turning back after that. What sort of recognition has the unplugged programme received? Well, it's used all around the world. It's been translated into about 18 languages. Software companies are desperate because there's a major global shortage of programmers. Google flew Tim to their HQ to hear more about his programme. The biggest problem we have is because it hasn't been taught before, the people making the decisions don't really understand what it is. There's a popular image that I have to be a super geek to understand it. The messages that kids are getting from Hollywood, probably from parents, and just, you know, from the stereotypes and so on is that it wouldn't be very cool to get involved in that. Two, three... If there was one thing as a country you think we should be understanding about teenagers and technology, what would it be? I think one of the misunderstandings is that because teenagers use technology so much, they really understand it. But if anything, I think it's immunised them from understanding what's happening behind the technology. These are 12-year-olds learning about parallel sorting algorithms, which I think is amazing. This isn't something that's going away. It's not like the world's gonna go, 'Oh, we've tried computing. It didn't work out.' It's the future. It's the world. So you would think that we should really be investing heavily in educating our children in at least understanding coding and giving them a chance to get interested in this thing that is building the world. It's becoming the fabric of society, and we can't just sit back and say, 'Well, it's not so important for NZ.' Every time a new technology comes along, we feel it's the end of civilisation. I very firmly believe that the increase in juvenile delinquency is, to a large measure, attributable to the television. My mother was really convinced that television was gonna wreck me completely. Um, you know, her mother was really convinced Elvis' pelvis was gonna wreck her. I'm sure my, um, you know, great-grandmother was really worried that the wireless was gonna wreck my grandma. And when writing was invented, Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, said that it was a terrible idea and would lead to a culture of forgetfulness. We're no different. Lots of people are worried that technology is making teenagers more anti-social. But actually, today's teenagers are more social than I ever was. They're also building whole new careers as YouTubers and coders and stuff we haven't even imagined yet. That doesn't mean there aren't problems ` things like cyberbullying and graphic pornography. Just because they know how to use a smartphone doesn't mean they know how to use it responsibly. CELL PHONE VIBRATES Technology isn't good or bad ` it just is. The research can't paint a clear picture one way or the other, which means it's up to us to help teenagers decide what role technology should play in their lives and how much of that life they wanna spend looking at a screen.